Just
after noon, Wednesday, December 2, 1992, Mom took Dad to the doctor and
they decided to put him in the hospital. When she returned to the car, Dad
was asleep and she could not wake him up.

She
drove him to the hospital in Templeton, "Faster than I ever drove in
my life!" At the hospital, Dad's heart stopped from a lack of oxygen,
but the doctor immediately brought him back by hitting his chest twice,
and giving him oxygen.

It
was determined from x-rays taken the day before that Dad did not have
pneumonia as the doctors originally thought, but that he was suffering
from cancer in the lungs, and probably the stomach, although this was
disputed later by his Doctor at the Sansum Clinic.

Soon,
most of his immediate family was able to gather at his bedside where he
lay in a state of semi- consciousness. At times he was able to acknowledge
our presence, but as those times became less frequent, we were sorry that
his oldest son, Gene, was delayed by traffic from reaching the hospital
from his home in Visalia.

Thanks
to cellular phones, the entire family was able to communicate, and a
family decision was made to honor Dad's wishes and not allow any life
support measures to be taken, other than giving him oxygen and doing
whatever it took to keep him comfortable.

Shortly
after Gene arrived, a nurse swabbed Dad's mouth with Listerine, and he
woke up. We surrounded his bed as Mom leaned over and told him she loved
him. With great effort, Dad raised his head and said, "I love you,
Dorothy." Gene was on the other side of Dad and he leaned close and
told Dad he loved him, and Dad looked right at him and said, "I love
you, Gene." Dad then lay back and acknowledged the rest of us with
his eyes. We all told him how much he meant to us, and how much we loved
him. Then he slipped back into a state of semi-consciousness.

We
will always be thankful for that moment.

A
family decision was made to cremate Dad and inurn him near Ricky's grave
in Cayucos following the memorial service we held for him at the
Atascadero Bible Church in Atascadero. The outpouring of sympathy and love
for Dad probably would have astonished him.

*
* *

EVENTS
OF 1912

The
Year Of Leslie Reddell's Birth

At
the beginning of 1912, the President of the United States of America was
William Howard Taft, a Republican who had been elected in 1908, and he was
running against former President Theodore Roosevelt, who had formed the
Progressive (Bull Moose) Party, and Woodrow Wilson, the Democrat's candidate.
On November 5, 1912, even though Roosevelt promised to give women the vote,
Woodrow Wilson won by a landslide after promising to break up big business to
restore competition.

On
January 6, 1912, New Mexico was admitted to the Union, and on February 14,
Arizona was admitted, and became the 48th state. On April 14 to the 15, the
new, unsinkable British luxury liner, The Titanic, struck an iceberg off the
coast of Newfoundland on its maiden voyage and sank, killing about 1,500
persons, many of them notable U.S. and British citizens. It was found that
there weren't enough lifeboats on the ship.

On
May 5 to July 22, the U.S.A. won 23 gold medals in the Olympic Games in
Stockholm, Sweden.

On
June 5, U.S. Marines were sent to Cuba to protect American interests. On June
19, a new labor law was passed by Congress extending the eight-hour workday to
all workers under Federal contract.

On
August 2, the U.S. Open Golf tournament was won by John J. McDermott. October
8 to 16, the ninth annual baseball World Series was won by the Boston Red Sox,
American League, who beat the New York Giants, National League, four games to
three.

On
October 14, former President Theodore Roosevelt was shot at point blank range
on his campaign tour. The bullet penetrated a bulky manuscript before entering
his chest, and he insisted on delivering his speech before going to the
hospital.

On
December 13, Leslie Woodrow Reddell was born on a small, rented farm in the
dry farming community of Atoka, Oklahoma, to William Harve Reddell and his
wife, Anna Novella Howard Reddell.